September 2013

09/30/2013

I just returned from a whirlwind weekend East to attend a memorial service for Ferdie Wandelt, a great man who died too young, but lived the kind of life we all aspire to achieve. The eternal optimist, surrounded by family and friends, feeling blessed to do work he was called upon to do.

I knew him as my friend Allison's dad, as the Head of Admissions at the boarding school where I lived as a faculty child, as the girls' varsity lacrosse coach, and as the jovial man who always met us at his door on Christmas day, with his glass of Doers half-full, and a wide warm embrace.

I didn't play lacrosse for Mr. Wandelt, as I had watched the movie Chariots of Fire as a kid and dreamed of being a track star. I remember him calling me before spring season my sophomore year, when it was clear I was more of a hustle player than a natural runner, and my aggressive speed on the soccer field didnt translate to sprint victories in track, and trying to convince me, again, to play lacrosse. "I'll work with you every day over spring break," he said. And he meant it. One of my regrets from high school, is not saying yes.

As I stood in the September sun, green leaves turning gold, in the courtyard where I graduated from high school, listening to speeches about Ferdie's impact on others, I could still hear Mr. Wandelt's voice: "Christy, how ya doing?"

I'm alright Mr. Wandelt, but listening to your life captured in story, there are some things I'd like to do better:

Too often, I get caught up in the negative, in the worry and what ifs, I dwell on the smallness of people instead of the potential, I ask why me instead of what now, and starting today, I'd like to at least notice when the hands of fear and criticism hold me down. I'd like to just say: "This is what we got" and move on to either solving the problem or letting it go.

I loved hearing the story of the e-fax. The time a colleague emailed you from his room, a few doors down, in a Hong King hotel, not knowing you never replied to your own email, instead your wife and partner, Joanna, faxed every email to you, so you could handwrite a response. So this message traveled from Hong Kong to Watertown CT, where Mrs. Wandelt printed it out and faxed it to the hotel, bellhops brought the message to you and were soundly tipped to return your written notes to be faxed back to Watertown so Joanna could compose your response. All the while the man who wrote you sat at his computer about eight feet away. I take two lessons from this story. First, we all can find ways to adapt our idiosyncrasies into this ever-changing world, but it sure helps if we have someone to support us in our efforts. And second, communication, in all forms, matters, but it sure is nice to receive a postcard or letter from time to time, pen and paper, something we can hold. I want to remember to write thank you notes and hand-written messages in this time of constant shallow communication, and even more so, when I can, to speak to people face to face.

And finally, family and friends is all that really matters. I loved seeing people at the service, where years piled between conversations, but it felt as if mere minutes passed since our last words. It is friendship and not money or things that move us. If we put our energy into building a community of support we'll never be let down. This seems obvious, but I still forget. When my children come home from school today, I plan to put aside all other obligations and just listen to their bright little souls.

Thank you, Mr. Wandelt, for reminding me to say, "I love you" to someone every day. To live up to the values I hold dear in my actions and not just in words. To see success as a happy marriage, friends, and a communty more than salary, luxury items or accolades.

Its an honor to have known you, Ferdie, and to hear you tell me, time and again, as you did to so many, "You're the best."

09/21/2013

Can't stop coughing, can't sleep, so I move to the recliner, hoping to let Nick rest and that maybe, if I'm more upright, the constant tickle will subside.

I hear Elias climbing down from his bed. His door opens, he lets out a little cry and then closes it again. Uh oh, I think, he either had a bad dream or is also sick.

Elias almost fell asleep at the table the night before, yawning and rubbing his eyes without eating a single bite of chicken or rice.

He stumbles out of his room and walks right past me in the dark. When I call his name, he stops in the kitchen, trying to make sense of his Mom's voice coming from the playroom he just walked through on his way to our bedroom.

"Elias," I say again, "I'm on the recliner."

He climbs up with me and snuggles in as only a wiggly bony nine-year-old boy can. "Try to keep your body still," I say, as I try to protect my chest from his elbows. He feels warm.

I don't know how long we are like this, minutes or hours, time is a bit of a trickster in a sleepless night.

But I know at 5:30 a.m. he throws-up on both of us.

Happy Saturday.

Oh yeah, and Nick took Olive to the doctor yesterday for her cough and fever, only to learn our three-year-old has low-grade pneumonia and an ear infection.

I don't remember any of us being sick all summer long, when our days were spent camping, fishing, and working in the garden.

Makes me think we should always be on vacation. Forget this whole school and work thing.

So if you have any creative ideas on how we could pay our bills without working, at least not in the traditional way of inside and nine to five, please let me know. While also home-schooling our kids but where I don't have to teach them everything. With plenty of social opportunities, while living in a cabin in the woods. With a hockey rink.

And while your at it, maybe you could stretch the summer season a little longer here in AK and make the temperature this morning warmer than 29 degrees. 59 would be nice. Reverse that frost that killed all my Dahlias still covered with buds yet to bloom.

09/16/2013

He sits at his desk, his green lunch bag zipped shut, his coat on inside out, his fingers near his mouth, he stares at something only he can see, his eyes above the heads of his classmates, who socialize and eat in small clumps. A new girl, with limited English, sits behind Elias eating alone.

I stand and watch him, for an eternity, a minute, before walking in. "Hey Bud, did you eat some lunch?"

As I help him, a boy with braids I know from soccer says, "Is that your son, Ms. Christy?"

"Yes." I smile.

He nods his head and turns back to his card game.

Another kid, the first on the field to fake fall, pretend he's hurt, and put down others to cover his mistakes, the first to call someone names and then tell me when that kid retaliates, the one to gloat about his goals and come up with an excuse when his team loses, you know the kid, well he looks down at Elias, not that he's mush taller but, you know, he looked down from the top of his high-and-mighty eyes as if to say, "Him?"

He doesn't know I'm thinking: Oh shit, you're sitting next to him.

Elias is in a class with 26 "typical" kids. Not without their own challenges. Some have a Mom or Dad in jail. Some have been in and out of foster care. Some live with abusive parents. Some don't have food in their fridge.

Some have big egos.

I hang up Elias's coat, grab the other two that were left behind on previous days, and return to Elias's desk to unzip his lunch bag.

"Well, I thought I'd take it to my office and bring it home, so it doesn't get left here again and that way we're sure to have it for the weekend."

"Are you going home?"

"No," I lie.

I am.

I took a half day to meet with the Neuropsychologist to review Elias's tests.

Elias doesn't know this.

He doesn't know that after lunch Nick and I will sit across from the Dr.'s desk and listen as she describes Elias in terms. In numbers. In the results of tests. He doesn't know that I have done this so many times that I can hear a new label as access to services and not as a mark against my son. That I still break a little inside when I hear the words, "significantly impaired", but I don't let them define my boy.

He doesn't know that before I go to this meeting, I will walk home from school, walk past my eager dog who I had planned to run, and crawl into bed to bawl.

Because I just can't shake the image of Elias sitting alone at lunch in a crowded room.

And not alone like the new girl from South America eating Cup o Noodle at the desk behind him. But alone in the room.

Somewhere else.

In a world I can't access. Not fully.

I will cry and cry and think of calling people but cry instead.

Until I walk outside and pull the rain-sogged petals of pansies, stare at the dahlias just beginning to bloom, ground myself in the dirt of my backyard.

And oh, how I wanted to wrap him up in my arms and say, "Ok. Lets just cuddle on the couch and read books. Let's bake cookies and break down the garden. Let's take a nap and ride our bikes. Let's just play all day."

Instead I said: "We all have jobs to do Elias. And yours and mine is to go to school."

09/07/2013

09/04/2013

I feel it in the morning when my alarm sings me awake. Hard to rise in the dark.

Sun rose at 7:02 this morning and set at 8:54 tonight.

No more gardening till midnight. Almost time to prep for snow. But I still have buds on my Dahlias, and I'm hoping our first frost is still a few weeks away.

Its cliche, I know, but Alaska really is the land of extremes.

Only a few days of rain in July. Only a few days of sun in August, and so far September seems bent on overflowing our creeks and hiding the sun from my still green tomatoes.

I find myself longing for a longer season to grow all things green. Dreaming about living on a farm in Alabama instead of feeling anchored down in Anchorage.

But then I look up.

And I think how could I survive without the Chugach mountain range. How could I live anywhere but here?

And maybe its the intensity of our short summer, filled with nothing but day, that makes me so garden-crazy. Gotta fit it in while I can because soon my world will turn white. And black and grey and brown, with only the blue of the sky and the color of evergreens.

No more burnt orange or royal purple. Drink it in now before the colors fade.

Oh enjoy it while they're young because they grow up so fast! I hear this a lot from older parents whose children have grown.

And you know, it never really helps; instead of making me stop everything to embrace my kids, I feel guilty for not loving every minute of their oh-so-precious childhood, when on many an evening I wonder if I'll even survive their upbringing.

I'm sure I'll look back with longing, in the same way I find myself staring at pictures of flowers in February, incredulous my yard once looked so bright.

So green. Hard to imagine when the snow feels so permanent.

But in the moment, its all I can do to survive.

And yet I get it.

"I want to see pictures of my birthday. When I was a baby," Olive said to me tonight. So we sat in front of the computer looking at old pictures-- and seeing her so small, already feels impossible.

And Elias, how could he have possibly fit in the palm of my hands? The weight of a soup can, so fragile, beyond small.

The earth continues to turn.

And turn.

And turn.

Our days grow shorter in the fall only to lengthen again in the spring.

As the seasons cycle, we just age. There's no going back. Olive will never be three agian. Elias nine.

And I may not be able to enjoy every moment, but I'll capture what I can. So years from now, I can look back and say, "I remember when..."